Most Popular Publications

Much has been written lately that asks the question -- are young people across this country ready for college? The Forum for Youth Investment, Connect for Kids, Voices for America's Children and many state Kids Count organizations have developed this series for state advocates to share the vision, messages and state policies being proposed to improve the college readiness of youth.

Seven students recently joined me for breakfast in a windowless conference room in Des Moines to talk about “the high school dropout crisis.” They were experts: Five had dropped out. Another had come very close.

Quality is fast becoming a policy priority in states and localities around the country. As a result, formal and informal networks of youth organizations are seeking and developing strategies to help them assess and improve performance.

The Forum's OST Policy Commentary series is back! In this issue we discuss the implications of recent research led by Bart Hirsch, Reed Larson and Charles Smith. Each study helps deepen our understanding of youth work practice and can inform policy strategies aimed at developing a strong, stable, committed and prepared OST workforce.

Engaging young people as partners in community change is a compelling idea, but translating that idea into effective practice requires focused attention to a range issues. The principles described in this paper emerged from the commingling of research and practice that occurred when the Forum for Youth Investment merged with Community IMPACT! USA.

This commentary highlights the work of the Collaborative for Building After-School Systems, a collaborative of mature, city and county-wide nonprofit OST intermediaries, to develop and adopt common youth-, program- and system-level measures that are easy and cost-effective for local systems to implement.

The core belief here at the Forum for Youth Investment – that all young people should be Ready by 21 – ready for college, work and life – often provokes public criticism. The exchanges typically go like this:

“Not every young person needs to go to college,” calls out one person from an audience. True, I say, but all should be ready to.